Steve Nash and Yao Ming, Making Something Happen

ESPN
August 31, 2007 5:14 PM


On March 12, 2007 the Houston Rockets played in Phoenix (Leandro Barbosa went insane, making 12-18 shots, and Phoenix won by a country mile).

Steve Nash had something on his mind. After the game, he went to talk to Yao Ming about it, in the tunnel under the stands.

The topic? Orphans.

Specifically, Chinese orphans.

Steve Nash is that kind of thoughtful.

And Yao Ming is receptive to that kind of thought. The two decided that night to try to do something to make the world a bit of a better place.

They share the same agency, BDA Sports, so Nash and Yao put the BDA people to work figuring out how best to undertake an ambitious charity project. Many long days of work later, BDA President Bill Duffy, Vice President of Marketing Bill Sanders, Team Yao leader Erik Zhang, and many others have cleared all of the necessary hurdles to create something special.

It's going to happen in a couple of weeks. And here's what it is: On September 14, in Beijing, Steve Nash, Carmelo Anthony, Greg Oden, Bonzi Wells, Derek Fisher, Baron Davis, Chuck Hayes, and Leandro Barbosa (all BDA clients, except Davis and Fisher) will play in a charity game against Yao Ming and the Chinese National team.

It will be televised on China's CCTV, and the stadium is expected to be sold out. The hope is to raise in the neighborhood of a million dollars to be distributed to the charities of choice: Chi Heng, a privately funded non-profit that works with children with AIDS; the Special Olympics (with World Summer Games next month in Shanghai); and the China Youth Development Foundation.

Well done, everyone involved. This seems like a pretty amazing project.



Yao Ming wipes tears from the face of Chinese AIDS orphan Zhang Yun during a July 2005 HIV/AIDS awareness event that was part in the NBA's Basketball Without Borders program in Beijing. (Photo: REUTERS/Alfred Cheng Jin)